Understanding Advertising’s AI Dilemma

September 30, 2026

Musa Kalenga, CEO, the Brave Group explores how AI is reshaping the advertising industry, challenging traditional agency business models and shifting the focus from billable hours to operational efficiency, measurable outcomes and commercial value. He also outlines the role of emerging markets, including Africa, in driving this transformation.

For a decade, enterprise marketing has been hooked on a quiet, expensive lie: that software purchase orders equal operational progress. Chief marketing officers assembled towering martech stacks to tame an explosion of digital channels, only to create an unmanageable performance tax. Gartner’s latest data confirms the fallout: martech stack utilisation has collapsed to 49%.

More than half of the software enterprise boards paid for sits idle, generating recurring subscription debt while army-sized agency teams waste thousands of hours manually stitching together incompatible data feeds. Now, the advertising industry is repeating the exact same error with artificial intelligence.

The Legacy Drag

Over the past two years, legacy agency networks have treated generative AI as little more than a turbocharged copy-pasting tool. They have bolted standalone prompt interfaces onto fundamentally broken, multi-layered workflows, mistaking isolated task speed for structural transformation. McKinsey rightly calls it the ‘pilot trap’. Deploying fragmented applications atop brittle data foundations that fail to move the commercial needle by a single basis point.

This failure is not a technology problem; it is a business model conflict. The advertising industry’s legacy holding companies are trapped in a classic innovator’s dilemma. Their business model remains stubbornly anchored to the billable hour. Selling human time creates a perverse economic incentive: the more friction, delay, and manual iteration built into campaign execution, the higher the fee.

Toxic Efficiency

If an autonomous agentic network can generate, test, optimise, and deploy a global campaign in three minutes rather than three weeks, a time-billing agency suffers a 90% drop in top-line revenue. Efficiency is toxic to their P&L.

As a result, major agency networks promise ‘AI transformation’ while quietly engineering ways to keep their headcount-heavy billing engines running. They offer clients automated efficiency while charging them for the hours it takes humans to oversee the automation. The market will not tolerate this friction much longer.

AI Stuckness

True enterprise resilience requires moving past superficial prompt engineering and embracing full agentic orchestration. The operational divide is already widening. According to Boston Consulting Group’s 2026 enterprise survey, while 96% of CMOs say they’re running AI initiatives, 42% remain stuck using AI as a basic administrative assistant.

Meanwhile, the top tier of market leaders has stopped experimenting. They are deploying autonomous, agentic systems directly into core commercial workflows, shifting from human-driven assembly lines to integrated intelligence layers.

This shift dismantles the traditional four-stage agency lifecycle:

– Strategy stops being a static quarterly presentation in a glossy deck. It becomes a live, predictive simulation continuously modelling consumer sentiment, pricing sensitivity, and competitive movement in real time.

– Creative production and activation merge. Instead of weeks of sequential asset adaptation and manual localisation, autonomous agentic systems dynamically construct, translate, and format creative assets within strict brand safety guardrails the moment a market opportunity emerges.

– Media optimisation moves from a post-campaign autopsy to live execution. Agencies have spent decades charging clients to analyse wasted ad spend after a campaign ends. Autonomous networks now reallocate capital across platforms and creative iterations mid-flight, long before media budgets burn out.

– Measurement finally abandons vanity proxy metrics. Powered by clean-room architecture and verified first-party data, performance is tied directly to bottom-line velocity, pricing power, and customer acquisition cost.

When campaign timelines collapse from months to seconds, hourly billing loses all commercial credibility. The dominant agency models of the next decade will be structured around performance equity, outcome-based risk sharing, and commercial growth arbitrage.

Critically, this restructuring will not be led by legacy holding company hubs in London or New York. High overheads, multi-year office leases, and public-market margin pressure make radical self-disruption nearly impossible for incumbents.

Instead, as I argued in The Brave Code, the most aggressive operational innovation is occurring across emerging markets. Unburdened by century-old billing habits, bloated middle-management structures, or heavy legacy infrastructure, agile agencies across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia are leapfrogging the holding company era entirely.

They are building natively as intelligence engines, operating with lean, high-conviction strategic teams that govern autonomous operational networks.

The mandate for brand leaders and investors is stark. The era of building enterprise value through billable headcount and bloated software procurement is finished. The agencies that survive will not be those selling time to manage software, but those that can turn real-time market signals into commercial value at the speed of modern culture.

BRAVE GROUP
www.bravegroup.co.za

The Essence Of Sustainable Packaging

Modern Marketing

September 30, 2026

According to Traderbag, a company that locally sources its materials and manufactures bags using Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified material, paper packaging can play an important role in a circular economy while supporting local manufacturing, economic growth and job creation.

Traderbag began supplying paper shopping bags to major clothing brands in 2025 and currently supplied millions of bags a year to the fashion sector alone.

The company locally sources its materials and manufactures bags using Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified paper, water-based inks and locally produced paper.

Responsible Paper Starts With Responsible Sourcing

Traderbag managing director Daniel Cherry says the idea that using paper automatically means damaging forests is outdated.

‘The key question is where the paper comes from. Responsible paper producers use managed commercial forests where trees are grown as a renewable crop. The message shouldn’t be ‘don’t use paper because you’re killing trees’. It should be: use responsibly sourced paper efficiently, reuse it where possible and recycle it when you’re finished.’

Traderbag works closely with local paper producers, Sappi, recognising that the sustainability and performance of a paper bag start with the quality and provenance of its raw material.

The company’s directors recently visited Sappi’s Ngodwana operations, including Ngodwana Energy, in which Sappi has a 30% stake. The facility uses biomass recovered from surrounding plantations and screened waste from the mill to generate electricity, with surplus power exported to the national grid.

Water management is another important part of the sustainability equation.

‘Paper production does use water, but the important question is how that water is sourced, managed, reused and returned,’ said Cherry. ‘Sappi mills can recycle and reuse water multiple times and have made significant reductions in water withdrawal.’

Sustainability Must Work Commercially

Cherry said sustainability is about more than the material used to make a bag.

‘A sustainable bag is no good to a retailer if they run out of stock or it doesn’t perform. That is why we combine the paper product with forecasting, stockholding, custom sizing and direct-to-store distribution. Sustainability has to work commercially as well as environmentally.’

FSC certification also provides retailers with a credible way to substantiate their sustainability claims.

‘For us, it is about chain of custody. FSC provides a traceable link from the responsibly managed forest through the paper producer and converter to the finished product.’

Paper And The Fashion Sector

Traderbag sees fashion as a natural market for paper bags. The products being carried are generally dry and relatively lightweight, while the bag itself becomes part of the customer experience and continues to display the retailer’s brand after the purchase.

But Cherry stresses that choosing the right paper bag is not simply a matter of selecting the heaviest or thickest paper.

‘The bag’s purpose is the starting point. Size, construction, handles and reinforcement all need to be considered. The goal is to find the most efficient combination that delivers the required strength, appearance and performance without unnecessary material or cost.’

For Traderbag, that is the essence of sustainable packaging: responsibly sourced materials, efficient manufacturing and a product that works for both the environment and the business.

TRADERBAG
https://www.traderbag.co.za

Heinz Celebrates The Story Of SA On Heritage Day

Modern Marketing

September 30, 2026

Heinz Celebrates The Story Of SA On Heritage Day

On National Braai Day, Heinz marked its arrival in South African braai culture with a Heritage Day celebration in Johannesburg, bringing people together around the fire for a proudly South African day of food, music, art and togetherness.

From the ground, 125 braais became 125 places for South Africans to gather, cook, eat and connect. From the sky, they formed the Heinz label, one enormous symbol of Heinz finding its place in Mzansi.

Rather than telling South Africans how to braai, Heinz, a food brand with over 150 years of heritage, came to bring its own taste to the table and let South Africans decide for themselves, and Mzansi answered.

Heritage Meets Heritage

As part of the celebration, Heinz partnered with South African artist, Ricollin to paint a tribute to South African heritage in Heinz Tomato Ketchup. Working live, Ricollin brought together symbols of South Africa, its people, its food and its culture, around the Heinz bottle, as guests watched two heritages meet on a single canvas. It was bold. It was proudly South African. And it could only have been Heinz.

‘Heritage Day is about honouring where we come from. Heinz has spent over 150 years joining family tables around the world and seeing that heritage meet South Africa’s around 125 fires was deeply moving. We didn’t come to tell South Africans how to braai. We came to earn our place at the table, and today Mzansi made room for us,’ said Passant El-Ghannam, CMO Middle East & Africa, Kraft Heinz. Call it ketchup. Call it tomato sauce. Just taste what your braai has been missing.

With Heinz on the table around every fire, perhaps the name matters less than the taste. And that taste is something Heinz never compromises on. Heinz is obsessed with quality: every bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup starts with tomatoes grown from Heinz’s own seeds, so it has the same balanced taste, right colour and rich texture anywhere in the world.

Heinz arrived with a story of its own. On Heritage Day, it celebrated the story of the country it now wants to call home.

125 braais became one Heinz Keystone label. Ketchup became paint. More than 2,000 strangers became one Heritage Day celebration. For one big day in Johannesburg, Heinz didn’t simply put its sauce on the braai. Heinz became part of the braai.

RETROVIRAL
https://retroviral.co.za/

Using AI To Redesign The Operating Model

Modern Marketing

September 30, 2026

Using AI To Redesign The Operating Model — Lynn Madeley, High Performance Matters.

Lynn Madeley, CEO of High Performance Matters, writes why AI is forcing marketing departments to redesign how work, capability, governance and partners fit together. When you ask marketing and agency leaders what’s keeping you up at night, increasingly, the answer is the same: How do we actually operationalise AI in a way that creates measurable business value? Organisations have adopted AI tools, but they haven’t redesigned how they operate around them.

It raises the question of whether the whole marketing operating model is still fit for purpose. In an AI-enabled environment, the real work isn’t choosing between in-house and outsourced, or between creative, media, content, technology and production partners. It’s designing a system where all those capabilities create value together, without confusion or uncontrolled risk.

That’s where the conversation has shifted. Clients don’t only need agencies that respond well to briefs. They need clarity: what sits inside the marketing department, what stays external, what gets automated and how decisions, data, governance and accountability flow across the whole ecosystem.

A ‘big brief’ used to be a communications challenge. Now it’s often an operating model ask. Marketing teams want faster content, sharper performance media, more integrated customer journeys, lower production costs and smarter use of AI and they’re asking their agency partners to help model all of it. That’s a major shift in the agency-client relationship and in the commercial model underneath it.

Scratch the surface and what’s revealed is rarely about AI. It’s unclear decision rights. Capability gaps on both sides. Slow approvals. Fragmented data. Duplicated partner roles. Under-used technology. A procurement model that still rewards activity over outcomes.

The agency relationship becomes the visible symptom of a deeper design problem. AI is merely exposing these issues. What looks like an agency challenge is usually an alignment challenge between strategy, people, process, systems and governance.

The Traps AI Sets

AI won’t remove the need for external partners, but it will remove the tolerance for vague roles, inflated teams and work priced as though nothing has changed.

Clients and agencies need to agree, together, what gets automated, what gets augmented, what moves in-house, where external expertise still earns its keep, and how efficiencies should show up in fees, as well as who owns data protection, brand governance, IP, approvals and the quality of AI-assisted output.

The danger is treating AI as a cost-cutting exercise. That’s the fastest route to thinner thinking, more content and less impact. The opportunity is to use AI to redesign the operating model around higher-value human contribution: sharper strategy, deeper decision-making, faster learning loops, stronger collaboration, clearer accountability.

The Marketing Department Has To Change

You can’t redesign the agency model and leave the client side untouched. If AI changes how agencies work, it changes what marketers need to lead and govern.

Expect fewer traditional coordination roles and more strength in commercial translation, data-informed decision-making, partner governance, customer understanding and change leadership. Middle managers will absorb most of the pressure, sitting between executive ambition and daily reality, expected to translate strategy, guide teams, manage partners and decide faster with less certainty than ever.

The answer is deliberate operating model design, backed by coaching, change management and genuinely practical ways of working. People need to understand not just what’s changing, but why, what’s expected of them, and how success will be measured.

A Prediction, For What It’s Worth

Marketing departments will become more focused on what customers really want, on overseeing automation and on building great partnerships. Agencies will lean harder into groundbreaking ideas and less into execution. As an industry, expect fewer suppliers, far more technology, and much greater integration across the ecosystem. Success will depend less on managing a stable of specialist partners and more on orchestrating a connected system of capabilities.

Beyond The Recommendation

This is a performance system question and most organisations stop at the recommendation stage, when the real work is in the operationalising: designing the future-state model, aligning leadership around it, clarifying decision rights and governance, building capability, driving adoption, and measuring whether it’s actually delivering value. Strategy without execution is just an expensive opinion.

The outcome worth aiming for isn’t an ‘AI-enabled marketing model’ and a fresh organogram. It’s a practical blueprint: the future agency ecosystem, the internal capability required, the split between in-house, embedded and external expertise, the governance AI use demands, the operating rhythms, the capability gaps, and the measures that prove the model is working.

Most importantly, it gives agencies and clients something they usually lack, which is a shared operating language with less territorial protection and fewer hidden assumptions. That makes for faster decisions and better work.

The question keeping marketing leaders awake isn’t whether they have the right agency. It’s whether they’ve built an operating system capable of extracting value from AI, technology, data and partners.

Every organisation will have access to the same tools. The winners will be the ones who redesign how strategy, people, process, systems and partners work together.

HIGH PERFORMANCE MATTERS
https://highperformancematters.com

The Craft Of Advertising Encompasses Far More Than Execution

Modern Marketing

September 30, 2026

The Craft Of Advertising Encompasses Far More Than Execution

Anthea Whitehead, Cape Town Campus Manager, AAA School of Advertising asks, does advertising still matter in the age of AI slop? Advertising has always evolved alongside technology, but generative AI is accelerating that change at remarkable speed.

According to the SA Social Media Landscape Report 2025, 78% of marketers in South Africa are already using AI tools, while globally 90% of CMOs say craft and design are becoming even more important to keeping brands distinctive in an AI-enabled world.

New tools have made it faster to design, produce, edit, and distribute ideas, but few have changed the creative process as fundamentally as generative AI. Today, a campaign concept can be turned into hundreds of visual executions in minutes. Images can be created, copy refined, and variations tested before a traditional production team has even opened its first file. But, when anyone can create anything at the click of a button, is there still value in learning how to create something meaningful?

The answer requires us to look at advertising as a craft, rather than as a production line.
Good advertising has always been about bringing together creativity and discipline. It is about finding a meaningful insight, understanding the audience, developing an idea, connecting it to the brand, and then making the creative decisions that allow that idea to resonate.

This is particularly important in South Africa, where understanding an audience requires an appreciation of different languages, cultures, communities, and lived experiences. Data can tell us a great deal about people, and AI can help us process that information, but neither can replace the experience of paying attention to how people live, speak, behave, and see the world.

A tool might generate something that looks like a South African consumer, but recognising whether it feels authentic and culturally relevant requires a level of human understanding that cannot be generated by a prompt.

This understanding is built through curiosity and experience. Good creatives look beyond the obvious. They notice how people behave in a shopping centre, listen to how someone describes a problem, talk to people from different generations and communities, and seek out experiences beyond their own. They consume culture outside their usual interests and remain interested in why people do the things they do.

These experiences become the raw material for insight, but they also develop something that becomes increasingly valuable as technology makes execution easier: informed creative instinct. An experienced creative can often recognise when something works before being able to fully explain why. They can sense when an idea has potential, when an execution is missing something, or when something technically impressive simply does not connect.

This instinct honed by studying the principles of advertising, looking at good and bad work, experimenting, receiving feedback and, importantly, making mistakes. Over time, this experience develops the judgement needed to make creative choices rather than simply accepting the options technology presents.

The same principle applies to strategy. AI can process enormous amounts of information, but information is not understanding. A strategist still needs to question the research, challenge assumptions, understand the category, and recognise when an answer does not make sense.

This is why the craft of advertising encompasses far more than execution. It is the combination of observation, research, thinking, writing, design, storytelling, and judgement that turns information into an idea and an idea into communication that people can connect with.

Students entering the industry now are equipped with tools that will likely soon be outdated. It is their knowledge that will remain valuable. Their ability to think, question, observe, create, and make decisions will give their careers longevity and impact.

For advertising educators, this means preparing students to work with technology without allowing technology to do the thinking for them. Students need to understand how to use new tools, but they also need the foundations of the discipline: how to find an insight, develop an idea, understand an audience, and craft work until it earns its place.

These are the foundations of the craft. And they are skills worth learning, regardless of what technology comes next.

AAA
https://aaaschool.ac.za/

The Rise Of Feel-Good Marketing Reflects A Broader Shift In Consumer Expectations

Modern Marketing

September 30, 2026

Andrion van der Merwe, Penquin.

Andrion van der Merwe, Head of Production at Penquin explains why positivity and purpose-driven storytelling is cutting through the noise. From rising living costs and global uncertainty to the relentless pace of the 24-hour news cycle, consumers are navigating an increasingly overwhelming world.

This is fundamentally changing how people respond to brands, and those creating positive, meaningful experiences are emerging as the biggest winners.

Rather than relying solely on promotional messaging, Van der Merwe believes brands are increasingly recognising the value of creating moments that make people feel something.

‘In an environment where consumers are constantly exposed to negative headlines, economic pressures and information overload, brands that create meaningful, optimistic experiences are earning greater attention and loyalty,’ said Van der Merwe. ‘The rise of feel-good marketing reflects a shift from simply telling stories to creating moments that audiences can genuinely connect with.’

While purpose-led marketing has shaped the industry for several years, Van der Merwe believes audiences are now looking for something more tangible than purpose statements alone. They’re seeking experiences that create genuine emotional connection.

‘People don’t remember every advertisement they see, but they do remember how a brand made them feel,’ he explained. ‘Whether it’s an immersive live event, an unexpected act of generosity, an interactive activation or a campaign that brings communities together, these experiences create lasting emotional associations that traditional advertising often can’t achieve.’

This shift comes at a time when attention has become one of marketing’s most valuable commodities. With consumers exposed to thousands of brand messages every day, standing out increasingly depends on creating moments that feel authentic rather than interruptive.

‘Consumers have become incredibly selective about what deserves their attention,’ said Van der Merwe. ‘The brands that cut through aren’t necessarily the loudest, they’re the ones creating experiences people genuinely want to participate in, share and remember.’

For production and experiential marketing teams, this evolution is reshaping how campaigns are conceived and executed. ‘It’s no longer enough to simply produce an event or activation that looks impressive,’ he said. ‘Every touchpoint needs to serve a bigger purpose. We have to ask ourselves how people will feel when they leave, what they’ll remember and whether they’ll want to tell someone else about the experience.’

Van der Merwe says some of the world’s most successful campaigns have one thing in common: they create positive emotional outcomes while remaining true to the brand behind them.

‘Authenticity has never been more important,’ he explained. ‘Audiences are incredibly good at recognising when positivity feels manufactured. Feel-good marketing only works when it’s grounded in genuine brand values and backed by meaningful action.’

He believes this approach is also transforming the role of live experiences. ‘As people spend more of their lives online, real-world experiences have become even more valuable,’ said Van der Merwe. ‘Events create something digital channels can’t fully replicate: shared moments, human connection and lasting memories. When those experiences are designed thoughtfully, they become incredibly powerful brand-building tools.’

At Penquin, this philosophy is increasingly influencing how the agency approaches experiential marketing, production and brand storytelling, placing equal emphasis on strategic thinking and emotional impact. ‘For production and eventing teams, this presents an opportunity to design experiences that don’t just communicate a brand message, but something which leaves audiences feeling inspired, empowered and emotionally connected, turning memorable moments into lasting brand affinity.’

Looking ahead, Van der Merwe believes the rise of feel-good marketing reflects a broader shift in consumer expectations. ‘People aren’t simply looking to buy products or services anymore,’ he concluded. ‘They’re looking for brands that add something positive to their lives, whether that’s joy, inspiration, connection or a sense of belonging. The brands that succeed won’t necessarily be the ones with the biggest budgets, but the ones that understand that every interaction is an opportunity to leave someone feeling better than before. As the marketing landscape continues to evolve, positivity is becoming a powerful business strategy.’

PENQUIN
https://www.penquin.co.za

Connection, Inspiration And Empowerment: Change One Woman Hosted Johannesburg Networking Event

Modern Marketing

September 30, 2026

Connection, Inspiration And Empowerment- Change One Woman Hosted Johannesburg Networking Event

The Change 1 Woman (C1W) networking events and booth brought women in the industry together to connect, network, share ideas and build meaningful relationships at the Modern Marketing expos at Gallagher Convention Centre from 8-10 September 2026.

The C1W booth, which was sponsored by the Modern Marketing expo organisers, Expo Guys and Exhibition Building Solutions, featured a car wrapping activation, made possible with the support of Eco Signage Supplies and Wrapture, who provided the car door, wrapping materials and give-aways for the activation. Industry partners came together to support the C1W initiative and bring its message of empowerment and teaching skills to visitors at the expo.

Thank you to everyone who bought a C1W shirt on the booth and at the C1W networking events. R9750 was raised for the FESPA Foundation due to the generous support from DTF Printing Africa, T-Shirts South Africa and Northern Vinyl Supplies for the use of their heat press. C1W supports the FESPA Foundation in their efforts to use Print For Good at six rural schools around South Africa. Find out more and support them here.

C1W hosted inspiring speakers at the daily networking events who shared their experiences, insights and advice, encouraging women to grow, lead and take action.

Talitha Oosthuizen (1st Princess Mrs South Africa) shared an inspiring message on conquering your mountains and living life to your full potential.

Key takeaways:

– Adapt, adjust, accept and move on. When things do not go according to plan, keep moving forward.
– Take it one step at a time. No matter how big your mountain may seem, keep climbing.
– What is your mountain? Identify your goals, understand what you need to achieve them and remember to look back at how far you have come.
– You do not have to climb alone. The people who support and walk alongside you can make all the difference.
– Create a ripple effect. Living to your full potential is not only about what you achieve yourself, but about the impact you have on others.

Liezle Barrie, National Sales Manager: Consumables at Intamarket Graphics, shared ‘Growth Through Reinvention’, a powerful reminder that growth begins with authenticity.

Key takeaways:

– Learn who you are underneath expectations. Stop becoming who others think you should be and step into who you are meant to be.
– You do not need to be ‘ready’ to lead. Growth starts before you feel fully prepared.
– Leadership has no title. Your growth, courage and example can inspire others.
– Do not hide your scars, they may become someone else’s roadmap.
– Becoming is not one giant transformation. It is a thousand small, intentional choices repeated over time.
– Stop striving for perfection. Start becoming authentic. You are allowed to become someone new.

SA’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Taryn Hunter Sharman, shared powerful insights on navigating the entrepreneurship journey and building a successful business.

Key takeaways:

– ⁠Fear can be a signal that something important that deserves your attention.
– Faith and fear can exist together, giving you the courage to move forward despite uncertainty.
– Get comfortable with money and take control of your financial future.
– Not every opportunity deserves a yes. Know your worth and choose what aligns with your goals.
– Do the ordinary extremely well, build your reputation and stay consistent.
– Work on yourself as hard as you work on your business.
– Leadership is built through the everyday choices and actions you take.

Like The Protea

All attendees received an engraved protea as it is a symbol of strength, resilience and transformation, and it represents the spirit and colours of the C1W. Purple represents courage and equality, empowering women to rise, lead and inspire. Orange represents hope and determination, fuelling dreams, ambition and positive change. Pink represents compassion and love, building connections, lifting each other and spreading kindness. Just like the protea, stand tall, be resilient and bloom where you are planted.

A huge thank you to our incredible C1W event sponsors for supporting this platform where women across the printing, signage and branding industries can connect, share their stories and inspire one another: Nutec Digital Ink, KGS, Avery Dennison, DTF Printing Africa, Midcomp, Intamarket and Graphix Supply World. Thank you for helping us make a change, one woman at a time.

C1W Initiative

Change 1 Woman (C1W) aims to empower women in the branding, print and signage industries. As part of this initiative, Modern Marketing would like to spotlight women-focused content like this piece. If you have any trend/business articles related to the signage, branding and printing industries, please email content to: info@c1w.co.za. Follow C1W on Facebook and LinkedIn for more updates.

CHANGE ONE WOMAN
https://www.c1w.co.za/get-involved/

Are Brands Adapting Quickly Enough To SA’s Township Consumers?

Modern Marketing

September 30, 2026

Are Brands Adapting Quickly Enough To SA's Township Consumers?

Rogerwilco’s 2026 Township Customer Experience (CX) Report, produced in partnership with Field & Insights Africa, explores the practical and emotional toll of keeping a household running amid unreliable infrastructure, tightening budgets and financial uncertainty, through the lens of ‘the cost of coping’.

For South Africa’s township consumers, the customer journey no longer starts at the till. It starts at home, with whether there’s electricity to keep food from spoiling, water to cook with or enough left in the budget to justify another trip to the shops. Those everyday realities, more than any single price tag, are now shaping how millions of South Africans shop, save and engage with brands.

‘For years we’ve measured customer experience from the moment someone enters a store, opens an app or interacts with a brand,’ said Mongezi Mtati, Senior Brand Strategist at Rogerwilco and lead author of the Township CX Report. ‘This year’s report shows that the biggest influences on consumer behaviour often happen long before that. Too often we ask why people switch brands or change the way they shop, when the better question is what happened before they even left home. Once you understand those pressures, their decisions stop looking irrational and start making perfect sense.’

Now in its sixth year, the annual study surveyed 1,600 township residents nationally. Many households have started treating perishability itself as a risk to manage, as 79% of respondents say they face monthly power outages while 55% face monthly water interruptions. Almost 40% now buy fewer fresh or refrigerated foods specifically because power cannot be relied on. That caution is reshaping the basket at a category level too. More than half of respondents are buying less red meat, while 60% are buying more chicken, a shift the report reads not as consumers abandoning protein, but choosing options that are more affordable, flexible and easier to stretch across the month.

That same instinct to protect the basket is changing how and where the township residents we surveyed shop. Affordability is now the single biggest factor in brand choice, cited by 54% of respondents, narrowly ahead of quality at 53%. Store loyalty itself has become conditional with 41% switching retailers for better promotions elsewhere and a further 41% switching to a store closer to home or work.

For brands, another significant finding is that visibility alone is no longer enough. Township consumers increasingly judge brands by whether they make daily life easier. While more than nine in ten respondents believe companies should play some role when public services fail, almost half say brands currently make little difference to their everyday lives. Only one in five believe brands genuinely help them cope with daily challenges.

The research suggests consumers are looking for practical forms of support, including more affordable everyday products, dependable availability, smaller pack sizes, support for local businesses and digital services that reduce costs and make life easier. Consumers want brands to do more than show up. They want practical support that helps them navigate everyday challenges. In other words, usefulness, not visibility, earns their trust.

The report also explores how households are adapting financially under sustained economic pressure. Stokvels remain a trusted, disciplined saving mechanism, with 34% of respondents currently belonging to one, most commonly to cover large annual expenses. Gambling, overwhelmingly mobile-led, sits alongside stokvels as a very different kind of financial coping mechanism, with half of respondents having gambled or placed bets during the past 12 months, reflecting the growing financial pressure facing many households.

Digital connectivity, meanwhile, is high but conditional. Two-thirds of respondents (66%) are online throughout the day, yet more than a third say data cost still limits how often they engage with brands online. This is why low-data formats carry outsized influence. WhatsApp promotions make online engagement easier for 49% of respondents, and simple, low-data messages help a further 44%. AI is also beginning to influence consumer discovery with 28% having used tools like ChatGPT to find new brands or products in the past year.

‘Township residents have already adapted to a world of constant uncertainty, disruptions and unreliable basic services,’ concludes Mtati. ‘The real question is whether brands are adapting just as quickly. The organisations that will earn lasting relevance won’t necessarily be those with the biggest budgets or the loudest campaigns. They’ll be the ones that understand the hidden pressures shaping everyday decisions and find practical ways to reduce the cost of coping.’

The full 2026 Township CX Report is available here. The site also hosts every Township CX Report since 2021, the Township Marketing Podcast and additional thought leadership exploring the trends shaping South Africa’s township economy.

ROGERWILCO
https://www.rogerwilco.co.za/

Dis-Chem Releases Celebratory Anthem For Heritage Day

Modern Marketing

September 30, 2026

Dis-Chem Releases Celebratory Anthem For Heritage Day

In celebration of Heritage Day, Dis-Chem released ‘Freedom’, an anthem celebrating the joy of movement, to inspire all South Africans to move more and reach for Better Health.

‘Dis-Chem started 2026 with a strong core belief that we wanted to get South Africans to move more, because we know that just as little as five minutes a day of moving your body will bring tremendous health benefits,’ said Dis-Chem Chief Marketing Officer Megan Kim de Vroeg. ‘So we put the question to our social media followers: ‘What does Better Health mean to you?’

The acclaimed South African conductor, composer and producer Ralf Schmitt, the conductor and co-founder of the Ndlovu Youth Choir, used those responses as inspiration to compose a song that was first performed by the newly formed Dis-Chem Freedom Choir at Dis-Chem’s Leadership Summit in April. The choir comprises 32 Dis-Chem staff members from Gauteng, three from the Western Cape, and five from KZN, who were selected from more than 100 entries at national auditions.

‘It was a very exciting process to write a song about what Dis-Chem staff and South Africans felt Better Health means for them, and my interpretation of that was, it’s freedom,’ said Schmitt. ‘You know, age is going to catch up with all of us, something is going to happen to us along the way, and if you’ve got good heath, you’ve got freedom.’

‘And they said, you’re going to record it with the Dis-Chem staff, and I was, like, what? Do the staff sing at Dis-Chem? I never knew that,’ he laughed. ‘And boy, do they sing at Dis-Chem.’

‘This song describes us as individuals, what we stand for and what we are,’ said Glen Sefularo, a Dis-Chem merchandiser at the Tambotie Mall branch in Randfontein. ‘So, it’s not only about the person who wrote it, but it’s South Africans who are asked to reply to it, and they responded wholeheartedly.’

Since being performed internally at different Dis-Chem internal events, ‘Freedom’ was re-recorded in August as a full commercial release, featuring J’Something, the Amapiano vocalist Thatohatsi, and hip-hop MC Early B, alongside the Gauteng-based choir.

‘Dis-Chem’s passion for improving lives can either be seen as marketing jargon, or it can be understood as the genuine purpose behind the business. While I don’t know everyone at Dis-Chem or the roots from which the brand grew, knowing that this is its purpose, its ‘why’, is what made it a brand I was drawn to for a campaign like this,’ said J’Something.

‘So that I hope that on Heritage Day, this song can revive the acknowledgement and awareness of our freedom, whether it’s freedom to move or freedom to express. It’s a beautiful day and it’s a beautiful time to be alive to be able to do such things.’

‘This track has been in the making for months and we were excited to release the song on Heritage Day as it addresses freedom of movement and our commitment to Better Health for all South Africans. Against the backdrop of the national sentiment surrounding freedom for women, we debated about delaying its release as we recognise that true freedom and better health depend on people being able to live their lives safely, with dignity and without fear of violence.

‘We are acutely aware of the need to provide safe spaces where all South Africans, men, women and children, can achieve their health goals as an essential part of building a healthier society. In the end we decided to share the song with South Africans on Heritage Day as it speaks to the kind of freedom we should all be entitled to, no matter where we are and no matter what we are doing,’ said de Vroeg.

‘Freedom’ is available on Spotify, Apple Music and other major music streaming platforms, and an accompanying music video, choreographed by the Cape Town-based jazz funk and hip hop choreographer, Rudi Smit, can be viewed on the Dis-Chem YouTube channel.

DIS-CHEM
www.dis-chem.co.za

There Is No Single African Consumer: Why Context Must Come Before Scale

Modern Marketing

September 29, 2026

There Is No Single African Consumer- Why Context Must Come Before Scale

Following her presentation, ‘The African Consumer Decoded’, at the Modern Marketing Power Hour (held during September at Gallagher Convention Centre), Anisa Fielding, Head of Marketing at the IMM Graduate School, examines what marketers need to understand before attempting to scale across African markets.

One of marketing’s most convenient shortcuts is geography. Draw a boundary around a market, find a few demographic averages and start describing ‘the consumer’. At a continental scale, that shortcut becomes dangerous. There is no single African consumer.

There are African consumers shaped by different markets, cultures, income rhythms, languages, devices, household structures, retail systems, ambitions and levels of trust. That distinction is not semantic. It changes the strategy. The fastest way to get Africa wrong is to make it simple.

Scale Is Real. Homogeneity Is Not.

According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, more than 70% of sub-Saharan Africa’s population is under 30. Meanwhile, the GSMA reports that mobile technologies and services contributed an estimated US$240 billion to Africa’s economy in 2025, equivalent to 7.8% of GDP. Yet it also estimates that 63% of Africans live within mobile-broadband coverage but do not use mobile internet.

– ‘Young’ does not tell us whether someone is a learner, entrepreneur, salaried professional or parent.
– ‘Mobile-first’ does not mean universal smartphone access, affordable data or a fully digital purchasing journey.
– ‘Growth’ does not mean frictionless access.

Averages are useful for understanding scale. They are much less useful for explaining why an individual consumer chooses one product, channel or brand over another. The better question is not: What is the African consumer like? It is: What context is shaping this consumer’s choice?

Seven Lenses for Decoding Context

Before designing a campaign for an African market, marketers can use seven lenses to interrogate the assumption behind the brief:

– Context: What makes this particular market structurally different?
– Capacity: How and when can people afford to buy?
– Culture: What meaning surrounds the category?
– Connectivity: How is the digital world accessed?
– Community: Who transfers trust?
– Channels: Where does discovery become purchase?
– Cohort: How do age and life stages reshape behaviour?

These lenses overlap.

– Connectivity can be shaped by income.
– Channel choice can depend on trust.
– Culture can change the meaning of a product.

Two people of the same age, living in the same city, may have completely different wallets, responsibilities and routes to purchase. That is precisely why ‘African youth’ is not a strategy.

Context Travels Less Easily Than Campaigns

The mobile money service M-Pesa remains one of the clearest examples. Its success in Kenya was supported by a particular ecosystem: strong demand for domestic money transfers, Safaricom’s established market position, a rapidly expanding agent network and a regulatory environment that allowed the service to develop.

South Africa provides a useful contrast. Vodacom discontinued M-Pesa in South Africa in 2016 after concluding that the service was unlikely to achieve the critical mass required to make it sustainable. The company specifically cited South Africa’s high levels of financial inclusion.

The product idea could travel. The conditions that made it useful at scale did not automatically travel with it. This illustrates the difference between an exploratory strategy and a reproduction strategy. A reproduction strategy starts with a successful model and asks how it can be rolled out elsewhere. An exploratory strategy starts with local evidence: the consumer problem, trust, access, distribution and regulatory conditions. Before reproducing what is visible, identify the ecosystem that made it work. Export the learning, not the assumption. Consistency can protect the brand. Sameness can destroy relevance.

Affordability Is About More Than Price

Another easy assumption is that financially constrained consumers primarily want the cheapest possible product. Sometimes they do, but often the picture is more complicated. Income may arrive daily, weekly, monthly or irregularly. A product can be affordable in total but inaccessible at the moment someone needs to buy it. Consumers respond through smaller packs, prepaid models, informal credit, shared purchases, lay-by and month-end stocking.

These behaviours should not automatically be read as low sophistication or low aspiration. A consumer with limited disposable income may still care deeply about quality, reliability, identity and status.

Value does not mean cheap. A smaller pack does not mean a smaller ambition. The useful strategic question is therefore not simply how to reduce price. It is how to redesign access without destroying the meaning that makes the product desirable in the first place.

Culture Must Shape the Idea, Not Decorate It

Culture is another area where localisation often happens too late. A global strategy is developed first. Local language, casting, music or visual references are then added to make it ‘African’. That is adaptation. It is not necessarily insight.

Guinness’s celebrated Sapeurs work connected its ‘Made of More’ platform to pride, identity, self-expression and community.

Nike’s 2020 Naija collection did not simply place Nigerian symbols onto generic football merchandise. Nike’s own account of the design describes Nigerian craft and visual traditions as direct influences: the home jersey drew on traditional agbada robes, details on the away kit referenced the Nigerian artistic movement Onaism, while Ankara fabrics informed elements of the wider apparel collection. Nigerian culture therefore influenced the design system itself rather than being added as surface decoration.

The lesson is not to imitate either campaign, but to understand why they worked. Local culture influenced the underlying proposition rather than being painted onto the execution afterwards. Translation changes words. Localisation changes meaning. Participation changes who has agency.

Mobile-First Does Not Mean Digital-Only

The same discipline applies to technology. Calling Africa ‘mobile-firs’ can be useful shorthand. It becomes dangerous when shorthand turns into strategy. Network coverage does not automatically mean participation. Device cost, data affordability, storage, electricity, digital confidence, language, fraud concerns and content relevance can all affect whether someone uses a digital service.

At the same time, consumers across African markets are not passive recipients of global digital culture. Amapiano demonstrates the reverse. The genre moved through DJs, nightlife, file-sharing, phones, creators, dance culture and playlists before accelerating globally. According to Spotify, global Amapiano streams grew by 114,377% between 2018 and 2024. Consumers were not simply consuming the culture; they were part of its distribution infrastructure. That should change how marketers think about influence too.
The most important influencer in a purchase may be a family member, trader, WhatsApp group, colleague or community voice rather than the person with the largest public following.

Localisation Is Also a Governance Question

Getting cultural relevance wrong is not always a creative problem. Sometimes it is an organisational one. The 2020 Clicks and TRESemmé controversy in South Africa demonstrated what happens when poor assumptions survive the entire approval process. Images of Black women’s hair were described as ‘dry and damaged’ and ‘frizzy and dull’, while white women’s hair was described as ‘fine and flat’ and ‘normal’.

The strategic question is therefore not only whether a campaign contains diverse representation.

– Who shaped the insight?
– Who had authority during development?
– Whose lived experience was present when decisions were made?
– Who was empowered to stop the work?

A diverse casting list cannot repair a decision-making system that lacks diversity.

Decode Before You Deploy

Better marketing across Africa does not require 54 isolated strategies. It requires greater discipline in deciding what should remain consistent and what must respond to local evidence.

– Segment by reality rather than geography.
– Localise the strategy before copy and casting.
– Design the entire ecosystem around offer, access, trust and channel.
– Give local consumers and specialists authority, not simply visibility.
– Test in individual markets, learn from the evidence and only then decide what can scale.

One successful market is evidence, but it is not pan-African proof. For the IMM Graduate School, staying connected to industry means ensuring that marketing education reflects current consumer behaviour, cultural change, technology and commercial reality.
There is ultimately no ‘African consumer’ waiting to be decoded.

There are African consumers to understand, and the brands that succeed will not be those that simplify the continent most efficiently. They will be the ones that recognise its complexity, find the right local truth and turn that truth into meaningful value.

Sources

https://www.uneca.org/stories/in-abidjan%2C-eca-and-unfpa-take-a-major-step-towards-better-monitoring-of-the-demographic

https://vodacom.com/news-article.php?articleID=3268&

https://www.vodacom-reports.co.za/integrated-reports/ir2016/ourgrowth.php

https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/africacan/how-kenya-became-a-world-leader-for-mobile-money

https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/638851468048259219/pdf/543380WP0M1PES1BOX0349405B01PUBLIC1.pdf

https://www.nike.com/soccer/naija-behind-the-design

https://newsroom.spotify.com/2025-08-01/spotifys-mother-of-music-campaign-celebrates-the-citys-unmistakable-sound-and-culture/

https://sahrc.org.za/index.php/sahrc-media/news/item/2461-sahrc-intervenes-in-clicks-hair-row/

THE IMM GRADUATE SCHOOL
www.imm.ac.za